He said he gave a speech to the Canucks before the 2000-01 season, the Sedins’ first in the NHL, in which he laid down team rules. One rule was that rookies were to be seen, not heard.
“So, I turned to these two,” Burke said. “I said, ‘I don’t want to hear a [gosh-darned] word from you two.’ They kept that promise for four years.”
Burke prodded them to speak Saturday.
Now the president of hockey operations for the Pittsburgh Penguins and a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame selection committee, Burke interviewed the Sedins at the PrimeTime Sports Management Conference in Toronto ahead of their Hockey Hall of Fame induction Monday.
The most interesting parts of the 25-minute conversation covered the early parts of their careers, before they won Olympic gold for Sweden in 2006, Henrik won the NHL scoring title and MVP award in 2009-10, and Daniel won the NHL scoring title in 2010-11.
[RELATED: Henrik Sedin proved Canucks right en route to Hall of Fame]
Did you know the always calm, polite twins grew up next to a factory that manufactured tanks in Ornskoldsvik, Sweden?
“Peacekeeping tanks,” Daniel said with a smile.
Did you know they have two big brothers — Stefan, six years older, and Peter, four years older — who played hockey and soccer?
“It really pushed us to want to be able to play with them,” Henrik said. “I think that’s what made us push ourselves to become good.”
Did you know — or do you remember, maybe — they faced hard times their first few seasons in the NHL?
“Yeah, it wasn’t easy,” Daniel said. “Obviously high expectations being high draft picks.”
When they came to North America, the Sedins lacked strength. What they did have, though, was a soccer background and excellent cardiovascular conditioning. If they couldn’t outmuscle opponents, they’d try to outlast them.
“If we were in the offensive zone for more than 20 seconds, we knew the other team was going to be tired and we’d have our chance to score, and I think that’s how we survived as long as we did,” Henrik said. . “Our conditioning was better than most people.”
What they also had was intelligence, not to mention an uncommon chemistry as twins. The face-off plays for which they became famous first arose out of necessity.
“I think that’s something we had to do early on,” Daniel said. “We weren’t physically strong enough to play with the big guys, and we had to come up with other things that we could use to our advantage. The face-off play was one.”
Henrik called Daniel “the face-off hero.” He said Daniel would come into the locker room during intermission and design “a strange face-off play.” They would go over it with their teammates and run it the following period.
“A lot of times we scored,” Henrik said. “It gave us a lot of extra goals.”
“It always ended with me scoring,” Daniel added with a smile.
The cycle plays for which the Sedins became famous mostly came later, after they spent the 2004-05 season in Sweden and returned to North America older and more physically developed.
“Cycling it down low was one that we always wanted to do, but early on, we couldn’t, because of our strength issue,” Daniel said. “I think that’s one thing after the lockout, when we came back stronger, we were able to do those things.”
Burke said he credited Marc Crawford, the Canucks coach from 1998-2006, for helping the Sedins through their early NHL seasons. The twins did too.
“I think Marc saw something in us and believed in us,” Daniel said. “He kept pushing us, and I think he educated us, what it meant to be professional.”
Henrik said Crawford taught them to play defense first.
“We didn’t produce maybe the way people expected us, but I think he taught us how to win games, and that’s with defense,” Henrik said. “From there on, we were able to start producing and be more complete players.”
Video: NHL stars reflect on Sedin Brothers HHOF induction
Losing the 2011 Stanley Cup Final to the Boston Bruins haunts the Sedins. The Canucks blew series leads of 2-0 and 3-2. They won each of their first three home games by one goal, but they lost three road games by a combined score of 17-3. Finally, they lost 4-0 in Game 7 at home.
“I wish we would have done something on the road that could have pushed us to win one of the road games,” Daniel said.
Henrik said the Canucks should have finished the series in Game 6.
“To not even have a chance on the road to steal a game, I think that’s what hurt us,” Henrik said. “Going into Game 7, it’s a toss-up. You fly there after the game. You come home. You see all the fans walking up the street, just expecting you to win. I won’t say it’s an advantage to play at Game 7 at home, especially in a Canadian market.”
Henrik said each would trade his scoring title for a championship.
But here they are now, 23 years after they were drafted together, entering the Hockey Hall of Fame together. In Canucks history, Henrik ranks first in games played (1,330), assists (830) and points (1,070), and seventh in goals (240). Daniel ranks first in goals (393) and second in games played (1,306), assists (648) and points (1,041).
“This is truly special,” Burke said. “[It’s one thing] for any player going into the Hockey Hall of Fame, but to go in as identical twin brothers? Wow. Amazing.”
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